Last weekend I was sitting in a coffee shop with the Times before me. According to Matt, its full title is closer to the Liberal, Butt Fscking New York Times. What could I do?--the news stand was sold out of the Rifleman. The stories were interesting and the coffee was good. A child was screaming and running between tables as its parents sat idly by.
The pitter patter of young feet and the sound of childish laughter go through my head like a nail. By and by smokers have been forced outside or quarantined in a different section. It seems an appropriate action to apply this type of segregation to people toting children into a coffee shop. Why should old farts alone enjoy a childless experience? All the brat-free residences in which I've inquired have a minimum age condition that is strategically set just above that of an old fart.
So the child is running around and screaming its head off with the parents displaying as much notice as Funkman had for the fat people in O'Hare. And in a room filled with about twenty-five people, it decides to fsck with me.
In these situations, I try to put on my best ogre face. Grumpy sonuvabitch oozed from my pores way before this kid decided to venture over to my table. There's a scowl on my face chiseled with snarled contempt for this kid's guardians. I am doing everything in my power to pass the entrance exam for grumpy old fart child-free living. And it puts its hand right on my liberal, butt fscking New York Times.
My eyebrows shoot to the peak of their arches in one of those what the hell are you doing looks. The brat stops his "wheeee" briefly, then he laughs and runs away. I don't know anything about kids but it appeared that my area had just been staked. The gauntlet had been tossed upon my pinko newspaper; the challenge was met and its instigator had fled with his hands sailing through the air.
Victory was mine.
Instead he returns and slaps his hand back on top of my newspaper. I shifted my look from grumpy to mean, a snarl more menacing than the first; he laughs and runs off a second time. One sip of coffee and he's back for more. But this time he places two hands on my paper. My reply is an icy stare. He laughs uncomfortably with his hands in place for an awkward moment then finally he runs away.
The icy stare appeared to work and I was granted a three paragraph reprieve. But then he returned to obstruct my view. A verbal rebuke was necessary. I tried to give him one of those Archie Bunker style rebukes through clenched teeth, but it was louder than I had planned. "Get outta here!"
"My broker is E.F. Hutton and ..."
Now suddenly I'm the bad guy. The kid's mother opens her arms to him. Everyone in the coffee shop gives me the icy stare. It looks like the kid might cry. Over my shoulder I notice a person who works with me... Not pretty.
All I wanted to do was drink some coffee and read the newspaper, to see what George W. Bush is doing to fsck up the world. According to the New York Times, he's starting wars all over the globe while back home we suffer for lack of No Children sections in coffee shops.
